


Please don't like me

by trashemdudes



Category: Please Like Me (TV)
Genre: Gen, Josh and Arnold's relationship is referenced a lot, M/M, set 10 years after season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 18:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11042244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashemdudes/pseuds/trashemdudes
Summary: Josh doesn’t want kids. As far as he had known, Arnold never did either.





	Please don't like me

Josh doesn’t want kids. As far as he knew, Arnold never did either. Except...there’s a little kid that is definitely not a holiday house pressing his face against the glass, looking at sweets in Josh’s store; it has too familiar eyes and curly hair.

“Thomas!” Arnold comes rushing into the store, making the bells ring, looking frazzled and on the edge of a panic attack. He kneels down checking Thomas over and lets out a sigh of relief when the child looks completely okay - just vaguely irritated at Arnold’s fluttering hands all over him. Arnold frowns, looking like he’s about to lecture.

“Daddy, he has rhubarb lollies.”

“I do. And I guess you just didn’t want to have kids with me. I mean my genetics can’t be that bad.”

Arnold looks up, and his eyes widen comically. “Josh?”

“Yes. Hello,” Josh replies, unwrapping a lollipop and sticking it into his mouth as he leans against the counter. He’s sort of been learning how to keep his mouth shut since he had to after all, dealing with real estate and his own sweets n coffee shop. He gnaws on the lollipop, knowing it’s making one of his cheeks stick out and him look ridiculous. Better than fellating it, Josh supposes. You shouldn’t go around seducing married men. He zeroes in on the gold band on Arnold’s left hand.

“Oh- I...how’ve you been doing?” Arnold asks awkwardly, his eyes averted, standing up, taking Thomas’ hand.

“Please tell me that you did not name your kid after Tom.”

“I didn’t. It...” Arnold says, “didn’t even occur to me until a week later when Evan called him Tom...”

Josh can’t help the little twitch on one half of his face that he always makes when he really cannot believe the person in front of him but also isn’t willing to say it, “Okay. Oh well, how’s married life? Is it nice?” He draws out the nice a little.

“Uh yeah,” Arnold looks a little dumbfounded even though Josh knows that that’s just the guy panicking a little inside, teetering between different responses; Arnold’s smart. Real smart.

“I...my life feels a lot more stable, and I like it.”

“Mmm,” Josh replies, choosing to suck on his lolly over addressing the fact that Arnold feels very very very far away, and his face is as hot as ever. He glances down to see Thomas, wide eyed and drooling a little, and grabs a lolly from the basket of them and bends over the counter to hand it to the kid. “Want one?”

Thomas stares up at Josh before turning to Arnold for permission.

That is...cute also, somewhat scary behavior to Josh. He’d always been a “you didn’t technically say no” kid from day one. And it’s a Tom doing it too...but then again, Josh’s seen Thomas give Niemh that look many times before in the early parts of their relationship - it was just that he’d only bothered to ask if he knew he was going to get found out. So, Josh supposes, all is right with the Toms in the world.

Thomas takes it grinning, unwrapping it, giving it a taste before he remembers to say, “Thanks!” with his mouth full.

It is cute. It is very cu-ute.

 

Josh slams the door, and Tom calls out, “Honey, are you home?”

“I’m not your honey,” Josh says.

“What’s for dinner?” Tom says, still in his bed clothes, looking frumpled. It’s the weekend, and since Tom is but a lowly worker and not a business owner, he gets to not get up on the weekends. Josh places a hand on the random support pillar by the kitchen and swings around it to put his back to Tom and face the counter as he grabs a fruit.

Apples and pork, Josh considers.

Josh turns back around to stare at the back of Tom’s head, leans against the counter, bites into the apple, chews, swallows, and says, “Arnold has a kid.”

Tom turns around so fast, he must have whiplash, but probably not enough because he says, “Our Arnold?”

Josh makes a little face at that before nodding.

“Oh no...Josh...tell me you didn’t get him pregnant.”

Josh stares at Tom before pointedly setting his fruit down on the counter and saying, “I would never ever never. I practice safety, Thomas. I get regular health check ups both of the STD kind and the one where I make sure I’ll be alive for the next year.”

“I-” Thomas pauses, “I have literally nothing I can say to counter that considering chlamydia and Ella.”

“Nope. no, you don’t,” Josh laughs, turning back to the kitchen to go start dinner. Tom knows well enough that unless Josh specifically requests Tom not to help, he had better offer some.

“So...” Tom has both arms lying on the top of the back of the couch, his chin on them as he says, “How...how was it?”

“The kid was cute,” Josh takes a breath and puts down the defrosted meat to turn to say, “Arnold named his kid Thomas.”

“I- oh. I’m flattered. Maybe I should’ve asked him out.”

Josh gives him a little disapproving look before saying, “He...uh actually forgot that that was your name.” Josh spins his pointer finger on the marble, giving a little shrug of his shoulders and purse of his lips.

Tom gives Josh an exaggerated look of surprise, “I’m insulted.” And then, “Really?”

“He was thinking along the lines of Thomas the train engine...apparently, Evan used to love this book as a child. I don’t understand why. The train’s face is so creepy.”

Tom asks slowly, “So...are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just great. Wonderful,” Josh replies.

 

Dinner’s done and eaten, and Josh is brushing his teeth, staring at his reflection in the mirror.

He doesn’t know what to think - he does, actually, know what to think and is trying to think it; he also does, on a whole, know what he should be feeling, but doesn’t really want to feel it.

Because Josh misses a warm body and someone else to make fun of besides Tom - even with all the Tindr guys he meets who aren’t bisexual - and because he hates the quiet, and the old house they had all lived in once was renovated - a good business decision his dad had said. There’s no trace left of them all, of Josh bedding hot guy number one, brain explosion guy, humiliation by Patrick the starfish, of Arnold, none at all, which is a real true pity. Yep.

Arnold’s moved far far on, and Josh is very much still in the same place as before.

But with more wrinkles and that mole on his lip still.

Josh scrubs his canines one more time before spitting and gargling.

 

Josh is in the middle of prepping for the next day, and Thomas had decided to drag Arnold to the shop after dinner. It is an interesting change to Josh’s usual dance around the kitchen with the radio turned on as he prepared.

The evening light's filtering in through the glass windows at the front of the shop with the silvery lasered letters saying "Josh's sweets and coffee shop," and it's almost peaceful, except for maybe Arnold's presence in one of the tables, watching Tommy.

“What’s in the cookie jar?” Thomas asks, tippy toeing up to uncap it.

“My mum,” Josh replies as he mixes the batter for some cupcakes.

“Josh!” Arnold yells.

Josh glances back a little peevishly, “She is in there. Say hello to mum.”

“Hello.” Tommy says, “Why’s she at work with you?”

“Sometimes I think she might need a change of view,” Josh replies, “I heard it was good for...” He trails off and then asks, “Could you get me some sugar in the cabinet over there?”

Tommy nods and trots off to drag the stool over to reach the cabinet.

When Josh turns to check on Thomas, Arnold is giving him a sympathetic look.

Josh ignores it as Thomas asks, “What does sexy mean?”

Josh suddenly recalls the rooster jar holding brown sugar in his cabinet that Tom and Claire had given him on his birthday after writing on it “in honor of sexy rooster Adele who was a man.”

“That they make you get hot, Tommy,” Josh says, jokingly.

Arnold isn’t amused, “Josh!” There's the scrape of his chair legs against the linoleum.

Josh shrugs, offering Arnold an unrepentant look. In three or four years, Tommy will have discovered new uses for body parts anyway.

“And stop calling him Tommy,” Arnold says with a tired, exasperated sigh after an awkward moment that they both choose not to address.

Josh shrugs, placing the cap back onto his mum as the cuckoo clock chimes. “I mean, I call Tom, Tom and Thomas, so all he gets is Tommy.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Arnold asks.

Josh just turns to Thomas and asks, “How do you feel about being called Tommy?”

Thomas’s voice comes out a bit echoey as he’d stuck his head in the cabinet, searching. He pulls his head back out and says, “I like it.”

Josh gives Arnold a little shrug, and Thomas Lockwood-Park is now officially Tommy.

 

Arnold is busy with some work that Josh is not quite sure what it is. It all sounds very complicated, and Josh had tuned out after a little while. He's not required to listen to maths stuff now that they aren't dating.

Josh does tune in at the end though where Arnold asks Josh to go pick Tommy up.

Thomas is skipping along the sidewalk in front of Josh, turning every so often to ask some question or tell him about some fact he had learned in class.

“No, Tommy,” Josh laughs, “I don’t know that male sharks bite female sharks to get their attention.”

“Well they do,” Tommy informs him very seriously. “It doesn’t hurt the girl though.”

Josh nods very seriously in turn.

“I asked the teacher what male sharks do to get other male sharks’ attention, and the teacher didn’t know. I told her that sometimes my daddy likes to gnaw on my daddy’s face.”

Josh nearly chokes on laughter, “You-you told her that?”

“Yes,” Tommy replies, turning to stare at Josh very seriously.  “Are we going to your shop?”

“Yes, yes we are,” Josh says, grabbing Tommy when he looks like he’s about to go off balance. They end up holding hands as Tommy traverses the border of the sidewalk, his other hand held out for balance. His hand's tiny and warm. 

“I have to be there for my shop to be open.”

“Oh. Can I eat some candy?”

“Yes, yes you can, Tommy,” Josh replies.

They reach the shop in no time, and Josh has several people waiting outside by the “back in twenty minutes" sign. He quickly finishes their orders, saying come again as the bell by the door chimes when they leave, while setting Tommy down in the kitchen with some cookies.

When the line is finished, Josh unties his apron and goes to the kitchen, announcing, “We’ll be making some cupcakes.”

Tommy, who’s standing on the counter to try to take some sugar out of a cabinet, turns and drops the bag, sending sugar flying everywhere.

“We’ll be cleaning the kitchen,” Josh announces, licking his lips for sugar crystals.

Tommy’s a hard worker, and they get everything cleaned up quickly with enough time to get started on the cupcakes.

For Josh to get started on the cupcakes because Tommy is tiny and has very bad motor skills.

Tommy sits on the counter instead, swinging his legs.

“You go to choir?” Josh asks, pouring batter into the molds.

“Yea, I like singing.” Tommy says, clanging his mixing spoon on the table. It’s been licked clean and so has half the bowl. Josh is pretty sure that they’re going to have to remake the icing.

“What do you like singing?”

Tommy starts singing Cheap Thrills, and Josh nearly chokes.

Like father like son, he supposes.

 

Josh is having a fight again, and he knows it’s just stress from work and that he had read youtube comments insulting Beyonce last night, but he can’t help his annoyance with Arnold.

Arnold, apparently, can’t help his own annoyance either.

“Your face is fine. Stop bringing it up every time we get into an argument. It's not even relevant,” Arnold says, that look of nervous frustration on him again, but there’s less nervousness than there was years before. “I liked your face. I liked- I liked how when you smiled, your whole face would crinkle up and even when you stopped smiling, you could still see a little of it, your laughter lines.” He was gesturing at his face with his hands. “And the color of your hair, especially when it was in the sunlight. Your nose too.”

Arnold’s little smile is familiar, his seriousness and kindness like a punch to the gut, slap to the face, kick in the dick. It's nice, Josh supposes.

“Well,” Josh says, shrugging a little uncomfortably, “thanks.” He manages not to say ‘you _liked_ them’ because he’d been lucky, hadn’t he? The luckiest, getting to meet someone like Arnold and love him.

Except, now, Arnold takes a deep breath in - and the psychiatrist said Josh was fine years ago and Josh is fine, just not, when it came to someone who should’ve been his friend, should’ve been there, like Geoffrey, even, who had been there - and starts to say what Josh really really doesn’t want to hear.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when your mom died.”

“No, you were getting it on with someone you seemed to like a lot,” Josh says, stirring the sauce. He stares down at the red sauce. It's for dinner for the four of them; Tom had insisted on not being here. He can hear Tommy screaming happily with Evan in the dining room.

Josh doesn't need to look away from the sauce to know the look on Arnold’s face, but then again, maybe it’s changed. Maybe Evan changed it. If so, good for them. In his head, Arnold’s mouth is open a little, his brow furrowed and he looks halfway between angry and scared. He sounds only angry when he speaks.

“And that’s my fault? I can’t believe this, Josh. You just...keep on bringing it up again and again. It’s like you can’t stand other people being happy because you’re miserable. You haven’t matured at all. You still keep running away from good things and then wanting them back after you’ve thrown them away.”

“...” Josh doesn’t say that he’d agonized over the breakup for months before and then months after, that Josh was certain that he’d been throwing his one chance at love away because he made really bad decisions like everyone else in his life. That it was long enough ago that he can think back on them, and he can smile and admit ‘I loved him. I did. I didn’t just imagine it.”

That thinking about Arnold and Claire and Tom and Ella tastes like slightly moldy black caviar.

But Josh is a grown up now. He’d told Gracie so last week.

So he tries to fix it. “She probably wouldn’t have minded. I mean Mum probably wouldn’t have wanted you there, mourning and weepy and stuff. She would’ve thought it was great, you, having a naughty. I mean when she was having one of her good days, she would’ve.”

After a long, tense moment, Arnold says something along the lines of ‘thanks, I’ve felt bad about it, I didn’t meant to, she was great, your mom etc etc,’ but Josh doesn’t really hear it.

Josh gives a little noncommittal twist of his shoulders, and when he turns to see Arnold offering a tentative smile as an olive branch, Josh manages one too.

 

“Wait, you’re joking right? _Arnold_ has a _kid_ named after _Tom_?” His dad looks dumbfounded.

“I know horrible, right?” Josh says, munching on freshly popped popcorn.

“Why? I mean I could imagine...maybe you, but Tom?”

Josh shrugs, willing to let his dad run along with that thought.

“Is-is there something deeper about Tom that I don’t know about.”

Josh struggles not to laugh at that one. Because it’s funny in an icky, horrible way, but sometimes his dad and Tom remind him of each other. Both, completely clueless.

“Um. Sure, let’s go with that.”

His dad, nods seriously, still trying too hard to be a good parent, something he’s never stopped with after Mum had died. He shifts on the couch, making hand gestures and far too much serious eye contact as he talks, “So this Evan.”

“Yeah,” Josh says through a mouthful of popcorn. He chews, swallows very slowly, takes a long long looong sip of the tea, and watches his dad swing between impatience and an attempt at an understanding look. “Real hot. Tall asian guy. Nice muscles and pretty eyes.”

“Oh,” his dad says.

“I’m home,” Mae yells loudly, the sound of small feet following the clack of heels and keys. The door slams, and Josh thinks it's apt considering he's feeling a little trapped by what he knows is going to come next.

“Josh, Josh, Josh!” Grace bursts into the living room, gap-toothed grin and all as she greets Josh with a hug.

“Hey, cutie,” Josh says.

She makes a pleased, muffled sound into his cardigan before popping her head out and asking, “Are you staying for dinner?”

Josh shrugs, looking at his dad.

“Yeah, yeah,” his dad says, staring off before turning back to look at Josh, “he’s staying.”

Grace let out a yip of joy before storming upstairs to change out of her uniform. Her voice fades as she runs up, yelling, “I’ll show you the school project I’ve been working on.”

Josh...hopes it’s not another solar system. Or anything artistic. Gracie is very bad at art, and Josh, very bad at lying.

“Hi, Josh,” Mae says, coming into the room, “Did Gracie ambush you again?”

“Yea. She did,” Josh says, “And I’m glad about it.”

She lights up, her smile a little teasing, “Ooo. She loves her big brother.”

“Yep,” Josh smiles back even as he can feel his dad’s stare on him.

“So, what were you two talking about?”

“Oh,” Josh says, making a face as he decides. He decides he doesn’t want to be dissected again. “Noth-”

“Josh met Arnold’s husband, Evan.” His dad pauses, whispering/mouthing to Mae, “He’s hot,” as though Josh can’t see or hear them.

“Yes,” Josh replies, sagging in an irritated dramatic way even as he rolls his eyes, “He’s hot and Arnold’s hot and Thomas is cute.”

“Thomas?” Mae pauses, her tone confused and incredulous, “Did- did something happen between you and Thomas?”

Josh has to laugh at that one, “No, no, nonono, no. Never. Nothing will ever happen between me and Thomas.”

“Thomas is the name of Arnold’s kid,” his dad mouths/whispers again.

“Yep, yep, yep. He’s a good kid. He visits sometimes.”

“Oh,” Mae says, obviously figuring out how to respond to all this new information. Saying that he’s met Arnold again and that the man has a kid is like telling people his mum is dead all over again. Less serious, but still, everyone has that over fussing reaction, that same pity and awkwardness that was one of the worst parts of his mum being dead.

The second worst was when Tom, high, had almost eaten part of her. Which was also the third funniest part.

“I like Thomas, and I like Arnold and I'm very happy for them,” Josh finally declares, settling it for everyone, “I’m not lying to hide my sadness, and I think it’s great that Arnold’s happy.”

“Oh,” they both say, obviously thinking he’s lying to hide his sadness.

Josh, suddenly with a great depth of longing - and to his dismay - misses Tom, almost so much he can’t handle it. He wants to be back at that couch in their old, ratty home with a toilet that can’t flush tampons and walls that are a little less white. But he stays for dinner, helps Gracie on her homework, watches a cooking show with Mae and his dad, and gives them a hug before driving back to his apartment, windows cracked down, radio on, singing loudly, “My boot scootin’ baby is driving me crazy....”

 

“You don’t think it’s awkward?” Tom asks. Tom, for some reason, feels the need to bring up Arnold and Tommy whenever the conversation lulls. 

Josh shrugs, shifting his weight from foot to foot while they wait in line for some ice cream.

“Uhh...no,” Josh says, wrinkling his face. “I mean...it’s a kid. Doesn't matter who his parents are.”

“You’re really nice to him though,” Tom says.

“...not really. Arnold’s gotten really naggy about how I make fun of him too much. I mean I’m making fun. It’s about fun. For fun.”

“You did try to get him to wear the pumpkin suit.”

“It was for a photoshoot,” Josh defends.

“But it’s still weird,” Tom says, making a face, “I mean if I met Ella’s kids..."

“You’d start crying like a baby and listening to sad songs again all day.”

“Pretty much.”

Josh shrugs and gives Tom a noncommittal response in a positive tone.

After all.

It’s hard not to like Tommy. Tommy’s a great kid, a good person, and he likes Josh’s jokes. So Josh likes Tommy.

 

Josh gets a call in the middle of making out with a cute black boy and nearly ignores it, but he manages to pry himself off that too kissable face and picks it up, breathless, “Hello, look I’m in the middle of -”

“Tommy’s been in an accident.”

Josh feels his penis quietly tuck itself away and sighs as worry overtakes the horniness. Josh isn’t even a dad. He never wanted kids. His penis’ life still suffers for knowing a child anyway, “Yeah? Should I...what can I do to help, Arnold?”

“Nothing. You can’t. He’s - he’s going to be fine, but he was screaming and Evan’s out on a business trip and I can’t reach him and -”

It would be unbearably awkward to go visit vulnerable ex-boyfriend Arnold while his husband’s out of town, and Josh really doesn’t want that kind of awkward drama in his life anymore. He wants it in Tom’s life so he can make fun of him.

He offers anyway.

“Do you want me to come sit at the hospital with you? Bring some maths problem book so you can distract yourself?”

“No, no, no I- I just.”

And Josh knows that Arnold’s never been the best at making friends, and all the friends he had made while with Josh - Hannah, Tom, Claire - did not go with him, so Josh might be his best option at the moment.

But Josh knows he’s never been the best at being friends with ex-boyfriends. He’s never been good at being friends with anyone except Tom and Claire. Him and Arnold had always been boyfriends....not friends.

“Look. I’ll come by, and bring some, some candies, and maybe when Tommy wakes up, he can have some, yea?”

“Yea-yea, I,” Arnold’s on the verge of a panic attack, and Josh tries his most soothing voice possible, falling into old habits, “Hey, hey. You said yourself that Tommy’s gonna be fine. He’ll want to wake up to his smiling, daddy, yea. So tell me what happened.”

Josh takes that moment where Arnold is collecting his thoughts to put the phone to his chest and say to Paul, his Tindr hookup, who’s pulling on his pants, “I’m so sorry. I just.- it’s my friend’s kid. He’s worried sick about him.”

Paul just flashes an awkward smile, telling him it’s fine, and that it was probably better that he go.

Josh’s penis does not want him to go. Not at all.

But he agrees and brings the phone back up to his ear where Arnold is speaking mid sentence. Josh’s probably missed something important.

“- he was screaming so loudly and crying, and I’ve never seen him look like that. Tommy always holds it in when he’s upset, so it takes a lot to make him cry, and his arm was facing the wrong direction....”

Arnold continues panic-talking and Josh listens, mournfully pulling on his clothes, passing by Tom who’s on the couch.

“I’m going to visit Tommy in the hospital,” he whispers, and Tom stares at him.

“This isn’t another Ben-type thing is it?”

And apparently neither Josh nor Tom is ever going to let the other live down the things that happened ten years ago.

“No,” Josh says, “No, it’s not. This is Tommy, and I am a little worried about Arnold. I’d be a bad guy if I didn’t go make sure if he was ok.”

“Ok,” Tom says a little disbelievingly, and Josh is so tempted to make a comment about his cheeks.

“Want to come with?” Josh tries, hopefully.

 

Josh is sitting _alone_ next to Arnold because Tom wanted to watch Top models because he has no actual girlfriend and hides from prostitutes. Beating on Tom makes him feel slightly better.

The nurse gives them updates, and Arnold nearly trips to get out of his seat each time she even slightly glances at them. It's a little tiring. Waiting in hospitals in never fun. Not that Josh expects it to be since there's the threat of very very bad news, but it could be better. 

The T.V.'s playing bad cartoon reruns on a glitchy screen, people look very mournful and grey, and Arnold makes Josh very stressed.

Josh has to sigh internally because Arnold had gotten upset when he sighed audibly, so Josh is sitting there next to an anxious Arnold, not really sure how to calm him down.

“Have you...watched any good movies recently?” Josh tries.

“No,” Arnold replies, his face in his hands.

Josh opens his mouth to note how Arnold isn’t making this easy for him, but instead just noisily unwraps another lollipop and shoves it into his mouth.

Eventually, Josh tries again, “I’m sure Evan will call soon.”

“Yea,” Arnold replies.

Josh tilts his head, pursing his lips.

“You don’t have anyone you need to call, do you?” Arnold asks, taking his face out of his hands to glance at Josh, his curls bouncing the slightest when he does.

Josh opens his mouth and then shuts it. Because he might say Tom, but that sounds incredibly pathetic, and Josh really does not want to say Tom.

“Nope. No. No one.”

Arnold frowns a little at that. He turns back down to his hands, and Josh jokes, “Wow, maybe I’ll find someone here at the hospital like Tom did Ella.”

“Oh, yeah, how are they,” Arnold asks a little hopefully. 

Josh sucks in a breath of air, shaking his head, “Not good, no, not good at all.”

Arnold sits up at that, eyes wide, “Wait, you don’t think they’ll divorce?”

Josh stares at him, “Arnold...they broke up a month after we did.”

“Oh,” Arnold says. “No...”

Josh shrugs. “Life happens. I mean," Josh laughs a little, “we thought we were going to last forever and...”

Arnold frowns even more seriously at that, and after a moment, he asks, slowly,“You didn’t date anyone after me?”

“No, I did,” Josh says, a little of his affront seeping into his tone, “Just not for long. It didn’t work out very well. I was...I was dealing with my Mum’s death still for a year or so, and then...work became more busy with real estate and the shop...I mean I still hook up with some boys...”

“Oh. I see” and it’s a polite one that comes from the kind of people that don’t see why Josh is still alone. It’s really not Arnold’s fault, and Josh can’t bring himself to be mad at him right now, but Josh doesn’t want to think about the fact that he doesn’t really know any adults. The closest he knows is Mae, but even then, all of them seem to make horrible decisions. Everyone he knows does. Except for maybe, perhaps, Arnold, who Josh had, for some reason let go and fallen out of love with. There might be some very wrong with him. Very wrong.

Josh doesn’t usually like to think about it, but he’s been forced to more and more lately.

He's just bad at life.

Everyone else seems decent at the very least.

He’s not sure who everyone else is though because it’s obviously not anyone he knows.

 

Arnold gets a call from Evan a bit later, and while Josh has seen the two of them together before, the utter change in Arnold’s demeanor is still slightly devastating. He relaxes and smiles a watery, affectionate smile. After a bit, Evan has to hang up, but Arnold is calmer after, sitting there in a quiet, still slightly awkward, but better, silence with Josh.

Josh doesn’t get to see Tommy that day; Arnold falls asleep while Josh watches cat videos on his phone with earphones on because he got scolded by the nurse when he didn’t. The cat videos are funny, but Josh is too aware of being alone in the bright, packed hospital waiting room.

 

Josh goes home without seeing Tommy but with the information that Tommy will be A-ok, just asleep for a while and only family can visit. He knocks out for the rest of the day on his bed, ordering his lackey Tom to put up the closed-for-emergency sign on his shop.

He wakes up in the middle of the afternoon, wincing at the light streaming in through the window and how the sun heated up the room. It’s near feeling like a sauna.

He just lies there, tempted to text Tom to tell him to come back and turn on the air conditioning for him. He knows what kind of annoyance that’d bring though. Always being texted to help with ridiculous things.

He lazes around before picking up his phone to see Arnold’s texts thanking him and updating him on Tommy. Then his thumb slips, and he happens to scroll down the messaging list to see “Mum” labeled in front of him. He doesn’t really think about how he still has all these emails and texts from her even though she’s ten years gone.

He scrolls through the texts that his mum sent him, asking for this or that, for him to help because she didn’t want to get out of bed. It takes about thirty minutes. Then he goes through the ones with Patrick. Then the ones with Geoffrey. Then the ones with Claire.

There are things, Josh knows, that you never get back, and those things are everything. Once something’s happened, there’s no taking it back, no redos. It just is, and you have to live with it. Even as much as you don't want to.

When Tom gets home from work, Josh is making dinner, and Josh pauses to sit down on one of the stools that spins to say, “I’m thinking of getting a jacuzzi.”

Tom pauses inbetween taking off his tie and putting down his suitcase. “You never even liked the old jacuzzi we had that much.”

Josh shrugs and screws up his face. “I just think I’d like one _now_.”

Tom stares at him and tries to be sensitive, “Did something happen with Arnold or Tommy?”

“Yes, Tom,” Josh says with exaggerated annoyance, “Tommy broke his arm and you weren’t there for moral support, so now he’s dead.”

“Should you be saying that-”

“And so’s Arnold. Because you weren’t there for moral support.”

Tom just stares at him.

“They’re both fine. Tommy’s perfectly fine as Arnold texted me, and as he texted me, I’m guessing he’s fine.”

“...are you ok?” Tom asks. Josh makes a face at his concern.

“Yes, Thomas, I’m always fine.” And in the end, Josh means it. Even if some days, he wishes he wasn’t.

 

"Thanks for sitting with me in the hospital. I'm sorry I never said it until now," Arnold says over the phone.

It's the late evening and the sky is a pale purple over the houses, the faint light coming in through the windows. Josh knows Thomas and his new girlfriend should be coming back from their date soon.

"Mmm just thanks?" Josh says, stirring the sauce in the pan. "I think I deserve a medal. Maybe, maybe a statue."

Arnold laughs at that, and Josh notices the way it doesn't really hurt. It just feels warm and familiar. 

"Thank you, Josh. I mean it." There's a long pause where Josh thinks Arnold might hang up, but the man doesn't. Instead he asks, "How're you Josh?"

Josh stares down at the bubbling gravy lined with the silver of the pot. He squints, moving his face closer.

"I'm- I think I'm fine, Arnold."

"I mean it, really. I'd like to know." Arnold insists.

"I know you do," Josh says. He knows he does.

So he tells him. Not everything, but just a little that's not really much at all, and Arnold listens, and he tells Josh a few things, and Josh listens, music playing in the background as he shifts his feet to the rhythm.

 

Fridays are Josh-and-Tommy playdate days.

Tommy being in the hospital doesn’t change anything.

“Hey, Tommy,” Josh says, sitting down beside the hospital bed. The sunlight’s filtering in through the leaves of the tree beside the window, and the curtains are loose, fluttering slightly in the wind. The hospital room almost looks appealing in the bright light.

Thomas cracks an eye open, his face growing into a smile at the sight of the homemade sweets and snacks Josh had brought with him.

“Your dad doesn’t know, so make sure you hide them, okay? I know a good hiding place. I’m the best at hide and seek.”

Not against his mum though.

Tommy nods, eagerly, obviously even more excited at the thought of _secret_ candy.

“I like you lots,” Tommy says, no segue,  munching on the taffy. Josh looks up from signing Tommy's cast and his abuse of rainbow Sharpies.

“You do?” Josh says. “For that, you get Josh’s special lamington’s next time. Cause I’m a real nice guy, and you’re a real nice kid.”

Thomas gives Josh a funny look and then ignores him for grabbing a handful of more candy. After a moment, “You’re a funny guy,” Thomas acquiesces.

“You think so?” Josh asks. He caps the markers, leaving them scattered on the bedside.

“Yeah.” Thomas says, “You are.”

There’s a breeze coming in through the window, gently rustling their hair. Josh leans his arms on the bed and says, “I’m a funny guy, alright.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this is weird, but I can never tell if someone wants a reply to their comment or not. So if you do comment, and want a response, put an @ at the beginning!


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